The OLD Philosopher – John M. Miller
Empires are nation-states whose political and military power grows so vast that they encompass other states along their borders or establish colonies elsewhere in the world to expand and consolidate their power. Eventually the strength of all empires dissipates, however, and their imperial overreach ceases, though they may survive as nations.
From the end of World War I, or perhaps as far back as the Spanish-American War at the end of the nineteenth century, the United States of America has been an empire. We never had an emperor or a king as such, but we have been an empire nevertheless.
It is an inevitable historical phenomenon that empires fight many wars for various reasons. One of the main reasons that empires fall apart is that they fight too many wars.
During the time the USA has been an empire, it has fought more major wars than any other single nation. After the Second World War, we were the primary combatants in wars in Korea, Viet Nam, the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq, although we also had allies in all those conflicts.
When Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine on February 24 of 2022, none of the NATO nations, especially the United States, became engaged in the warfare. After all, NATO had prevented Ukraine from joining its ranks. Instead, NATO massively united to provide the Ukrainians the weapons, other materiel, and humanitarian assistance to enable Ukraine to thwart the Russians. The US has provided nearly a hundred billion dollars of military and other aid, and our western partners have contributed an equal or greater amount.
This is the first time America has been involved in a war in which we had an interest where we did not provide our own firepower or our own “boots on the ground.” We are doing everything we can to support the Ukrainians in defending themselves without having our own soldiers on the scene.
President Biden has just returned from a trip to Asia to confer with some of our allies there. Throughout his career Mr. Biden has had a tendency in public to say things he did not intend to say, and on this junket he may have fallen into that unfortunate trap once again. He said that the US would militarily defend Taiwan were China to attack it.
If “loose lips sink big ships,” loose lips can also cause big blips. It is fervently hoped that China will never invade Taiwan, but should it happen, for the same rationale that we did not want to become involved in a shooting war with Russia, we also do not want to be engaged in a shooting war with China. That has as much or more potential for disaster as a war with Russia.
No one has been more supportive of helping the Ukrainians than Joe Biden. He has coaxed or coerced our allies into providing more weapons than they ever intended. No western powers have sent troops into Ukraine, because we wanted make certain we would avoid a hot war with Russia. We fear that a nuclear war might emerge from such a decision by mistake.
In Ukraine, happily the US has discovered a means by which we can strongly undergird a nation we favor without becoming actively involved in their battles ourselves. We stumbled late into this revelation, but better late than never. We would do well to follow this newly adopted policy in future wars that our allies believe are necessary to fight. In order to maintain our national integrity, we need not send troops into harm’s way in nearly every major war waged anywhere on earth.
John Miller is Pastor of The Chapel Without Walls on Hilton Head Island, SC. More of his writings may be viewed at www.chapelwithoutwalls.org.